Crazy Day.

Crazy day, lots of meetings, doctor's appointment this morning for my biometrics.

Blood work pending, blood pressure 110/70, waist is 33 inches. (Oh my gawd!) She wanted me to follow her around all day and inspire her other patients, haha. She gave me a gold sticker star.

Then of course we sat around for twenty minutes discussing prozac in chicken meat. Something about giving chickens caffeine so they stay up all the time eating, then they discovered the chickens were too wired so they give them prozac to calm them down. Who knows, I smile and nod.

Challenge is going really, really well. Last night I had pasta, substituted broccoli slaw for the pasta, LOVED IT. If you haven't, try it. Great stuff.

Gotta run, love to all, have a good day! :)

Tough Love to Remember.

Weigh-In 8/27/2012

Previous:               188.9

Today:                   187.0

Loss:                         -1.9

 

Today is Day #1 of Al's challenge. It is going well, menu actually looks about spot on what my norm is during a day.

 

187 is my weigh-in for the challenge, I will go ahead and use it for today's weigh-in. Not much difference this morning, although it was a bit smaller number. Does that count as padding my numbers? Haha. :)

 

On a side note, I am in love with Vanilla Almond milk. I'm attempting to eliminate a large chunk of dairy in the diet, and I thought I would give it a try. Fantabulous. That's all I can say.

 

 

TMI post - Avert your eyes now.

So, yeah. It's a TMI post about female things. Avert your eyes if you don't want to read it.

It is an amazing thing when you finally put the pieces of the puzzle together that your body has been leaving hints for days about. I've blogged about the following in the last week:

* My weight is higher at night than in the mornings, generally things aren't adding up scale wise.
* Yesterday I was so hungry I could have eaten a small bear.
* When I got home yesterday, the Mister said, "You look tired." And I felt tired.
* My normal destressing exercises were NOT working. In fact, I am pretty sure "NOTHING IS EVER GOING TO BE RIGHT AGAIN." passed through my head. For no reason - I've been having normal job-related stress issues, nothing major.

Yeah, it was my period.

Ever since I've been losing weight, my monthly... well, hasn't been monthly. According to my gyno, it's because my hormones are out of whack - basically it's pumping out hormones for a 250+ pound woman, and it is going to take time for it to regulate. As a result, I get my monthly about every 3 weeks. My last was August 2nd.. and now August 21.

It just doesn't seem right to get your period twice in the same month, haha.

The awesome part is - I should learn to listen to my body. It is telling me the things I need to know.

Yesterday, I was starving.

And I don't mean just a little bit - I was fighting hunger pains all day long. It wasn't being thirsty either.. I fit in 120 ounces of just water. I hadn't altered my exercise, I hadn't altered my eating. It was just one of those days.

I honestly had to stop at one point at work and just breathe - I haven't been this hungry in a LONG time. Who knows what was going on- probably something jacked up with my hormones.

Last night I went home and binged. I ate the following, in slightly higher moderations that normal: watermelon, brussel sprouts, peas, and salad (that included spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peppers, no dressing.) In the end I was finally satisfied, and I actually lost weight this morning.

Those are good binges. Those are the binges I will continue to have, lol. It just goes to show - no matter how much you think you have your eating under control, there's always going to be that one day.

Weigh-In 8/20/12

Previous:              189.6

Today:                  188.9

Loss:                       -0.7

 

Half a lousy pound (basically)... Oh well, at least it is getting farther away from 190's, haha.

 

Interestingly and frustratingly enough, my weight at the end of a day has been less than my weight first thing in the morning recently. I hate this. I have no idea why it is happening, but I want it to go back to normal!

 

On a really side NSV, I jumped for at least 30 minutes yesterday on a trampoline. It was fantastic.

Affirmation

I'm on Facebook, not as the weight-loss blogger, but as myself. I am a member of a weight loss page on FB, mainly because I have a friend who requested I join. The other day this showed up in my feed, and I found it added a bit of affirmation to my personal opinion about weight loss. I thought I would share.

What was a typical day?

Thanks, Shannon! I actually was sitting around the other day thinking about what my typical eating day looked like. On any given day, a normal day would have looked like this:

Choice of Breakfast: 2 Pop-tarts with a full glass of 2% milk, 2 chocolate chip Eggo waffles covered in peanut butter and syrup with milk, or 4 chicken mini’s from Chick-Fil-A with hashbrowns and a large sweet tea

                                               

Choice of Lunch:  I *always* ate lunch out. Every, single, day. We are talking usually a hamburger, pizza, fries, always sweet tea. More frequently I would go to a restaurant at lunch and still have appetizer, salad, meal.

Choice of Dinner:  I would guess 4/7 dinners were out.  Always included: Appetizer, Salad, Bread, Meal, Dessert.

                                               
If dinner were at home, we would be talking Hamburger Helper, Frozen Meals, (you know that frozen lasagna you can get?) generally anything easy.

Choice of Snack: Anything I could get my hands on, literally. Candy from work, junk from a passing store, junk from my cabinet. Movies would include a large drink, large popcorn, and king-size candy. I would go to dinner and then to the movies, and still I would eat that. 

And as if that wasn't enough, there were many times I would stop

in to the grocery store and grab a 20 ounce Pepsi and a 3 pack of

Zingers as a snack. A SNACK, PEEPS. Road trips included Pepsi,

Zingers, and Doritos.

I’m guessing, especially since my weight was 340, that I was eating about 3500 calories a day. Dropping to 1200 calories was VERY hard, it still is. It took a long time to learn what would fill me up and keep myself full. I had times when I thought I was a hopeless case. When I finally got myself into a routine, it became a lot easier. Today it’s like …well, it’s my life. It’s just what I do, what’s normal.

I will be totally honest here –it is becoming very hard for me to tell myself that I am doing ENOUGH. When I was younger my mother put me on fen/phen. I would eat an orange a day. That’s it. I became anorexic, and when they stopped prescribing the drugs I had one hell of a meltdown. I’m having an ongoing war with myself about keeping my calories at 1200 per day, not continuing to lower my goal weight, etc. It just goes to prove that it is all in my head – I just have to keep in under control.

Must. Keep. Repeating.

Losing weight means you'll look good in clothes. Exercising means you'll look good naked. :)

~~~~~
I must keep repeating, because I hurt!

What's my diet?

My blog is rather selfish; I use it more for my own accountability and friend-making ability than as a blog that intends to educate readers about how to do this diet thing right. I have no idea how to educate anyone else other than tell you what works for me, what I try, and pass along some information I find. I know I may not post it regularly – but I am very open to any questions you all have for me, if you want to email me anytime. I actually had a question emailed to me about my diet!

When I started this journey, I only went into it knowing one thing: that I wanted to lose weight. I had no idea how I was going to go about achieving this goal. After lots of reading health websites, other blogs, news articles, and everything else I could get my hands on, I decided that the basic fundamental cornerstone for dieting was simple: calories in vs. calories out. So, my daily calories would be the basic amount suggested for a female: 1200. Have I strayed over or below those 1200 daily calories per day? Sure. Some days I come in at 1140 (frequently) and others I make it up to 1500. But on average, on any given week, my calories will average out to be 1200.

With the basic cornerstone set, I then decided how to achieve those 1200 calories. Should I eat 1200 calories of low carb? Low fat? 1200 calories of Twinkies? I’ll admit – at first I didn’t think it mattered how I reached the goal of 1200, as long as I reached that daily goal. But as anyone who has been at this for a while can tell you – how you reach 1200 calories is so very important. But no one can answer that question for you – unfortunately it is trial and error. I’ve tried all of the following: eating 3 meals a day at 300 calories a meal; 5 meals a day at 300 calories for breakfast lunch and dinner with 150 calorie snacks; I’ve ate snacks of sugary granola bars, sugary yogurts, fruits, vegetables, and everything else under the sun.  You’ll find the best combination of 1200 calories that keeps you full for a whole day.

So here is what has worked and is continuing to work effective for me: 

***

1200 calories per day on average

Lower carbs

Low/No Sugar

Low dairy

Only one meal contains meat

LOTS of water (unsweetened tea and black coffee)

Due to health reasons, I try to fit in some of the following: dark chocolate, nuts, fish (2-3 times per week), and yogurt.

***

Breakfast: 150-200 calories

Snack: 50-150 calories

Lunch: 250-350 calories

Snack: 50-150 calories

Dinner: 400-500 calories

Dessert: 50-150 calories

I hate exercise. My readers know this. Even so, I make it a very conscious effort to move more. I take on most of the chores in my household, from the time I get home to the time I go to bed I try to keep moving. I walk thirty minutes a day. Walking is actually a great stress reliever for me.

If there is anything I can impress on you, it is the very utmost importance of ROUTINE. We all are going to have days that are off, but it is so very important that you pick yourself back up the next day and get back on our routine. Routine makes losing weight more manageable. Routine makes losing weight easier.  Routine is your friend at least in weight loss.

Some weeks you will see the weight stall, some weeks the weight will fly off but – if you stick to 1200 calories a day and move more, you will see results. Just keep at it and do not get discouraged.  Eat less, move more, get your head in the game and you will lose weight.

Weigh-In 8/13/2012

Previous:              192.0

Today:                  189.6

Loss:                       -2.4

 

It's official, I am in the 180's. :) Who knows what happend last week, maybe it was the raw egg yolk yesterday, or maybe I'm motivated for some other reason, but... it's time to get to the 170's!

The Marilyn Monroe Diet

As you all know, I love reading anything that might tweak this lifestyle change of mine. While reading yesterday, I came upon an article about the 50th anniversary of Marilyn's death.

She was a beautiful woman. According to her dressmaker, she was 5'5" and fluctuated between 118-140.

In a 1952 magazine article, she revealed a normal day's diet for her:

Breakfast:
1 cup of warm milk with two raw eggs mixed into it

Lunch:
None

Dinner:
Broiled steak, lamb or liver with 4-5 raw carrots

Evening snack:
Hot fudge sundae

Now obviously that is hardly nutritious. But she was a little bit ahead of the low carb diet, I'll give her that.

For kicks I decided to eat Marilyn's breakfast, slightly modified. I had 1 cup warmed skim milk, 1 egg yolk, 1 tsp of honey, and cinnamon. It is a total of 160 calories.

Verdict? Not bad, actually. Unfortunately, try as I might, I'm just not too big a fan of warm milk. I think if I try it later this week for breakfast I won't warm the milk up.

**edit @ 1:35pm: I thought I'd share that I was sure after my breakfast I'd need a snack between breakfast and lunch but... The egg yolk and milk kept me feeling full up until noon... There might be something to this.**

The Benjamins & The Drama

Why did I join the blogging community? I joined the blogging community for support. I wanted to find other people who were genuinely trying to shed this fat we have accumulated over the years, and I’m also a tip junkie. I love to read any and all tips that can get me closer to my goal.

I found so many great fellow bloggers. However, I found a lot on the flip side that annoys me just a little bit. It isn’t because they post about their binge the night before (God knows I still think about binging), or because they gained that week, or even because their diet methods are a bit questionable.

It is because reading between the lines, I see a person who is either (a) blogging for monetary reasons or (b) blogging for the drama. Let’s break this down: If you are genuinely serious about losing weight, after six months to one year plus of trying with little to no success, something is wrong. If after a year of eating 1200 calories per day, even without the first bit of exercise, and you haven’t lost weight, then something is wrong.

Usually I give people the benefit of the doubt, but after a while (long while), even I begin to smell something funny. If you are blogging for money or attention, please do not pretend to be able to give ANY advice to the people who are looking for weight loss guidance. There are some people out there much more naïve than I am and they can’t smell the stink coming from your blog.

Eat less + move more + get your head under control = weight loss.

Weigh-In 8/06/2012

 

Previous:              193.4

Today:                  192.0

Loss:                       -1.4

 

It feels good to be going in the right direction again. I'm not a fan of slacking a few days and seeing my whole week's worth of effort slip away.

 

I have to get my physical completed soon, blech. For the first time ever, my company requires you meet 3/5 biometrics before you can get a discount on health insurance. I believe it is blood pressure < 130/85 , HDL > 50, triglycerides < 150, 35" waist or lower (for women), and fasting glucose < 100.

 

The really sad part is, I didn't get them checked before I started the weight loss. I regret that. In fact, I've never had my HDL or triglycerides checked. It will be interesting. Now if I can just get the appointment made, lol.

 

On a huge interesting side point, my waist is 35" exactly. When I started this weight loss journey, it was 55". That boggles my mind.